Men Of Ideas (EP12): Hilary Putnam on “Philosophy of Science”

In 1978, Bryan Magee interrogated and then flawlessly clarified the greatest living philosophers of our day. 40 years later, these sessions remain the most astoundingly deep and intelligible philosophical discussions I’ve ever heard.

This week we will be enjoying Magee’s congenial exchange with Analytic celebrity Hilary Putnam. Although Putnam is known for many famous contributions to various subtopics favored by the Analytic approach—such as the theses of functionalism and multiple realizability in philosophy of mind—Magee constrains him to the philosophy of science and the ever-popular philosophy of mathematics.

120 years ago, science was thought to be on the verge of being a totally complete theory of everything that only needed some tidying up and an explicitly justified logico-mathematical foundation. Then, suddenly, from 1900–1905, Newtonian mechanics fell from being unchallenged insight into fundamental reality to a helpful but metaphysically misleading shorthand for calculating the behavior of medium-sized objects. Absolute space and time were gone, as was intelligible material change. Science changed from an almost-finished calculus ratiocinator to a hotbed of uncertainty and wonder. For although quantum mechanics is the most accurate/successful theory in history, the sense and reference of its terms and formalism are completely unfathomable.

Questions and Topics Discussed

• What is the status of scientific knowledge in our post-1905 world?
• How does Kant’s theory of human cognition feature into our current model of scientific understanding?
• What does it mean that the most precise physical theory in human history makes no sense?
• Before 1905, “conscious use of the inductive method” distinguished science from non-science. What demarcates the two today?
• Are the social sciences really proper sciences?
• What do philosophers of science do?
• Why do most scientists not care about philosophy of science?
• Does physics have a break-out concept that can compete with biology’s concept of evolution?
• In what sense is Marxism scientific? How do the Marxian accounts of scientific method and knowledge (of Engels, Lenin, and Mao) compare?

Special Pre-Halloween Bonus

This week, we have two special bonus features:

1. To help prepare you for Halloween, Professor Stephen Phillips (PhD, Harvard) will be with us to share some tales of terror that will chill you to the bone! Professor Phillips studied under both Quine and Putnam and has some inspiring, heartwarming, but also horrifying true stories to tell us about them. Reflecting on these might also help us flesh out the philosophical differences between these two giants, and transition us nicely from our previous Quine special into Putnam land.
2. After the video, we can discuss the always-scary topic of American anti-intellectualism. How can we, today, cheer fallibilism and uncertainty when these Enlightenment virtues have been weaponized by the culture industry to inculcate levels of gullibility, solipsism, nihilism, and reality denial that in a dystopian science-fiction novel would strike us as implausible? Trumpers, Flat Earthers, Creationists, and Pedophilia Projectors all happily endorse radical skepticism about all things normal, peer-reviewed, and well-founded. They have denied scientific knowledge to make room for faith in brutality and boundless schadenfreude the likes of which we’ve never seen before. So, dare we bring up the corrigibility of science in these darkest of times?

METHOD

• Watch this week’s episode prior to the discussion and we’ll go over your favorite parts during the show, many of which will be replayed live for review and discussion.

FULL PLAYLIST
[For prior episodes click HERE.]

Sep 08 — Episode 11. Noam Chomsky on “Chomsky”

Sep 22 — Special Event ⟩ LIVE WITH CORY JUHL

Oct 06 — Episode 12. Hilary Putnam on “Philosophy of Science”

Oct 20 — Special Event ⟩ LIVE WITH IAN PROOPS

Nov 03 — Episode 13. Ronald Dworkin on “Political Philosophy”

Nov 17 — Episode 14. Iris Murdoch on “Philosophy and Literature”

Dec 01 — Episode 15. Ernest Gellner on “Philosophy: The Social Context”